


I Can't Give You Anything But Love Baby

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cooking, Daisy Has Relationship Issues, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6197983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy wants to learn how to cook.</p>
<p>(based on a Tumblr prompt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Give You Anything But Love Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts).



He rests his head on the curve of Daisy’s neck.

“You’re trying to distract me,” she complains.

“You told me you wanted to learn to cook,” he says. “Distraction will be part of the process.”

“Cooking, not extreme cooking. No one is going to try to feel me up while I cook.”

Coulson closes his lips over the sensitive stop on her nape, pressing his thumb on the small of her back.

“Feel you up? I am offended,” he says, while he slips his hand under her top and draws his teeth across the shell of her ear and Daisy is very quickly forgetting if she has already added the cup of water like in the recipe. Damn, this is why she wanted to do this when he was asleep. “I would _never_ do such a thing while we are in the base, on official SHIELD grounds. That goes against at least fourteen regulations.”

“Okay, okay.” she says, gently pushing him and his morning goofiness for a moment, going back to the damn stew. Why did she want to learn how to make stew? Stews are gross. She used to have that at the orphanage and it was always bland and gooey.

“Why suddenly this obsession with learning how to cook?” he asks, placing one hand on her shoulder, warm and big.

She shrugs. “You don’t know how bad it gets when you’re not here in the base. One time May tried to cook and - “

“And you _let her_?” Coulson asks, alarmed.

“Well, we didn’t _eat_ it. Except Joey, the poor thing. He wanted to be respectful.”

He presses a smile against the back of Daisy’s head.

“Once I was invited to May’s house for Christmas,” he tells her. “Her mom’s even worse.”

Daisy chuckles. She feels a bit of tension ebb out at that. That’s not good because again she gets distracted. Cooking is kind of boring. She doesn’t know how Coulson does it. When she lived alone she just had to eat cheap takeout and cold stuff and that was enough for her. Her life was enough for her. Before Coulson came and messed it up with a job offer and with the way he wraps his hands around her waist in the morning, rocking both their bodies together to some soundless melody in his head, his skin humming all content. Daisy was okay without something like this. She was doing just fine, her and her van.

“Simmons is pretty terrible too. And Mack is normally too tired and only wants to microwave stuff. Someone, other than you, should know how to cook around here.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding doubtful. “That’s your only reason why you want to learn?”

Daisy lets out a little sigh and presses her face against Coulson’s shoulder. He loops his arm around her.

“What?” he asks.

“You know how you’re always cooking delicious things for me when we’re off-base?”

“At least I try to make them delicious,” he says, suddenly going all humble.

“They are,” she says. “And I really like it when you do it. But it makes me feel…”

“What?”

Daisy lifts her eyes. “Like I don’t do enough for you.”

Coulson frowns, then he relaxes into one of those soft, understanding, sad smiles she knows all too well. They’re piercing and how can something be soft and piercing at the same time? She doesn’t get Coulson. She doesn’t get this. Why is she even allowed to have this?

“You don’t have to do anything _for me_ ,” Coulson tells her.

She gets what he is saying - and he doesn’t have to do anything for her, she already feels blessed, there’s this hot wonderful over-stressed middle-aged man who cares for her like no one has ever cared for her. And sometimes that overwhelms her. And somethings that - like the good Catholic-educated girl she was - fills her with guilt, because she is not supposed to deserve this much. So every time he pampers him and she has nothing to offer but her meager love in return, it feels like she’s committing a crime, or that she’s getting too much and someone will take it away. Someone always takes it away.

She closes her fingers over his heart, feeling the soft fabric of the t-shirt he normally sleeps in. She bought for him. It’s pink. It cost five dollars. She can’t do stuff for him.

“I know I don’t have to but… I’d like to.”

Maybe if she learns to cook, maybe if she takes care of him when he gets injured, maybe if she manages to make him feel a fraction of the safe and warm and loved he does to her, maybe she’ll feel like she deserves it.

Coulson is looking at her like he knows what she means. Which he can’t, he’s not wired like she is, but maybe he does, because he knows her better than anyone. And he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t press. He bends and kisses her eyebrow and eyelid and he smells like toothpaste and their bed when he gets close enough.

“Okay but…” he says, taking the spoon from her hand.

“What?”

“Stop trying to make stew, stew is gross.”

“Thank God.”

Coulson wraps his arms around her. “Let me teach you how to make pancakes instead.”

“Sweet tooth…” she teases him, drawing a long,fresh breath.

“Very much,” he agrees, moving his mouth over her neck once more. “It’s okay,” he tells her, his hands up her shirt again. “I’m a professional, I can handle the distractions.”

That sounds like a challenge, Daisy thinks, encouraged because there are some things she definitely can do _for him_.


End file.
